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The Sugarbeat Goes On: 60's Rock for kids
The Associated Press
Sherry Goffin Kondor's parents didn't play childrens music for her when she was growing up in the 1960s. She had to do with her mom and dad sitting around the piano singing "adult" music.
But don't feel sorry for her. Her parents, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, were both accomplished
songwriters, so she heard some pop rock classics before the rest of us. "I just imbibed what was played around the house," Kondor said in a telephone interview from her home in Bedford, N.Y. "I remember performers my mother wrote for, such as the Monkees and the Drifters."
Now Kondor, 32, has given her two school-age children, Dillon and Sophie, some special music by recording classic rock songs in a way cute enough for kids but not so saccharine as to drive parents crazy.
"Sugarbeats: 21 Really Cool Songs" is a collection of songs from the 1960s. It was recorded by
Kondor and her husband, keyboardist and composer Robbie Kondor, and Sherry's longtime friend,Lisa Maxwell, a composer and sax player for the heavy metal band Guns 'n' Roses.
"I wanted to do songs parents will like but not about brushing your teeth or self-esteem. There are enough songs about those things. This is an entertainment-driven, fun thing," says Kondor. Keenly aware that kids listen to other kids, Kondor used children as backup singers on the album, which includes the Beatles "Twist and Shout," Jackie DeShannon's "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" and the Rascal's "Groovin."
Kondor co-produced and sings lead on many of the tunes, while her husband, a studio musician
who has recorded with heavies such as Eric Clapton and Whitney Houston, arranged the songs.
Picking songs for young ears was a little tricky. The better songs for kids are in the '60s," she says. "In the '70s, songs got more complicated or dirty." The album is clean, but not completely sterile. The song, "Higher and Higher," originally by Jackie Wilson, is OK for kids, Kondor says, because children experience love in their own way. "It wasn't about sex or romance," she says. "As long as it's not explicit, there is no reason they can't hear about love."
Kondor says she is aware of only one mother who thinks "Sugarbeats" is too explicit. The objection? A phrase in the song "All Together Now" that says: "Black, white, green, red, can I take my friend to bed?" "Children interpret that as their Teddy," Kondor says. "There is nothing sexual in it" Kondor, who made her recording debut at age 10 on her mother's classic album, "I'm Really Rosie," is working on a second "Sugarbeats" album due out in January.
Kondor realizes that having a famous mother has helped her, but it hasn't diminished her sense of accomplishment. "It was certainly an empowering thing," she says, "to decide to do something and come through the other side and say, 'Yeah, I did that.'
"It all came from being a mother, moving forward one baby step at a time."
-- The Associated Press
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